Macadamias - what happened?

Cafe Society
1

I enjoy macadamias, and like to have a can or jar around as a snack. But CostCo stopped carrying them, so I usually pick up a small can at Walgreens. But they haven’t had any in a while. So yesterday, I checked CVS. They had a jar…for $11.92!

What the HELL? The price more than doubled in a few months?

The Wikipedia page doesn’t give any clue, any indication that they have suffered a blight. In fact, there is a bit about production in Hawaii being reduced by over-supply, but they appear to be grown in a good number of location.

So what’s the story?

2

Only had a quick look, and can’t see much by way of specifics, but it does look like there’s been a bit of a shortage over the past couple of years. Particularly Hawaii and Australia, which seem to be the major producers (so I suppose if production happens to drop in both of them at the same time, it significantly affects the supply in general)

US: Local companies adjust to macadamia nut shortage

Nuts over macadamia shortage

3

I’m so glad I bought all those Frozen Concentrated Macadamia futures now.

4

Thanks Hallucinex, I guess I’ll be updating the Wikipedia page.

5

Jim Nabors (Gomer Pyle) and Roseanne Barr are both macadamia nut farmers. I’m guessing it’s a Hollywood conspiracy.

6

Cyclone Yasi in February severely affected all sorts of Australian crops: macadamias, bananas, sugar, mangoes etc.

7

That was part of your problem. Nothing’s cheap at CVS and the selection is lousy. Even compared with Walgreens. I don’t know how they stay in business.

8

Could be a demand issue, too. I know pecans have gone through the roof because Chinese consumers have discovered them.

9

I love them and they are great when you’re on a low carb diet, but even Walgreens doesn’t sell the little store brand can for less than six bucks these days. That’s only about four actual servings I think. For a while Aldi carried them a little cheaper but they weren’t as good.

10

When on the Big Island, I ate some from a local grower (Hamakua Macadamia Nuts) that were so damn good I vowed to buy only from them from now on. I haven’t ordered for awhile, so this thread prompted me to go to their website and check current prices.

They do seem to have gone up – http://www.hawnnut.com/Lightly-Salted_c_16.html

But there’s no sales tax in Hawaii, so that helps a bit.

11

Roseanne even has a new reality series on Lifetime called Roseanne’s Nuts.

[Dave Barry]I swear I am not making this up.[/DB]

12

Haven’t bought any in a while, but Trader Joe’s (Chicago area) sold fairly large bags of them for a really good price. Sorry, I can’t remember how much, but probably in the $5-7 range.

13

They have SPAM FLAVORED NUTS. I might have to order some just so that I can say that I did it.

14

I always use nutsonline.com . Fantastic products, good prices, and they almost always show up the very next day.

15

Those bastards!

We had three pecan trees, but my folks wouldn’t spray them so the bugs got the nuts. I suppose it would be hard to spray trees that were about 70 feet tall and with no road access.

16

Maybe this is down to the local flooding and cyclones but my local bakery isn’t baking white chocolate & macadamia biscuits at the moment. :mad:

17

Cover story. What happened was, they figured out macadamia-lovers are addicts and will pay anything. :wink: